Where the Sacred River Ran
by chickenscrews
Summary: <html><head></head>There exists a savage kingdom beneath the Land of Departure: the Wretwaré. One of its hunters has poisoned Aqua, subjecting her to passionate visions of other dimensions. But even as the toxin destroys her mind and body, she becomes the bridge between these unfathomed planes and questions if she truly wants to be saved. Loosely based on 13th Warrior and the poem "Kubla Khan."</html>
1. First Contact

I'm not trying to do any ships here, but you're free to see things however you want.

* * *

><p><span>Where the Sacred River Ran<span>

Chapter One: First Contact

The dulcimer's haunting melody rapt Aqua's every frenzied whim even in the remotest confines of her room, and so, eyes bloodshot, complexion paled, she set ink quill to paper and confessed her mind to no one in particular.

_I've seen Heaven. I've seen Hell. And I've seen everything in-between._

_ It's been that way ever since I was poisoned where the secret river ran._

_ I can still see it all now. Impossible to describe visions of Light and Darkness—entire worlds now open to me!_

_There are now images in my mind I don't think anyone in this realm has ever seen or dared to imagine, yet I can see it all perfectly: entire peoples and worlds of Light and Dark all existing in planes just beside us, or occupying the same space but trapped in alternate frequencies. I think they see me too—it's plain on their faces—and they're just as shocked to see me as I am to see them._

_Creatures and species so impossibly different from our own, yet they've been beside us this whole time. I'm trying to make sense of this, but the information flowing into me is just too overwhelming! I can barely focus on what's in front of me, let alone any tethers linking me to my own dimension!—how can I fathom everything I'm seeing and not go insane?_

Her pen-strokes became more rapid and less composed as she desperately tried to record everything she saw.

_There!—in one dimension stands a king—majestic and terrible—overseeing construction of a magnificent palace._

_In another frequency swirls a forest ancient in appearance, yet alive and vibrant._

_There's an endless chasm lit by hellish fire—occupied only by a woman wailing for a misshapen beast who scales the treacherous rocks to reach her. He answers her calls with passionate cries of his own demon tongue. Lovers, perhaps?—fire is gathering, the crevasse erupting!_

_Angels singing by a river that vanishes into a cavern—an ephemeral light shines from its mouth._

_On the edge of a cliff by a sea is a shepherd boy, visited by ghosts of kings prophesying war._

Heavy beads of sweat dropped fast as her fever and heart-rate rose, splotching the paper and coagulating the ink.

_I see them all at once and they're all aware of me. And there's more! So much more! I can't—I can't make sense of it all! There's too much—but I can't stop!_

The door to her room opened and there entered Eraqus, followed by Terra carrying a tray of freshly-synthesized medicines. They both froze in horror at what they saw.

"Aqua!" The Master cried in authority and concern. He ran to her and seized her shoulders, trying to call her back to their reality. "Don't you realize what you're doing? Come back to your senses!"

In haste, Terra had set the tray on a dresser and rushed to his friend's side to aid his master. "Aqua snap out of it! You're killing yourself!"

The young woman snapped back to her native reality, petrified in a cold sweat, slowly recollecting her surroundings. The Master and Terra loomed beside her, aghast at the state of their sickly friend.

Aqua didn't understand their terror until she felt a thick wetness flowing from her stomach and she looked down to find blood coursing from a reopened wound in her abdomen, leaking through her bandages and nightshirt so that it pooled across her lap and spilled onto the floor. When the shock finally processed, she was too weak to scream.

[Hours ago…]

A sizeable wave toppled Ventus where he stood in the waist-high river, and before he could recover, Aqua pounced and dunked him further still into the water, laughing at her victory. Ven barely broke through the surface with Aqua's weight pressing down on him, attempting to retreat but helpless in her hold. So they splashed and they played in the secret river they found together that led into an unforeseeably deep cavern. They stayed outside the caves, surrounded instead by the green banks where they left their outer layers of clothing and under the sun's rays filtered by shade from the trees.

Ventus squirmed free, splashing back as he fled, and Aqua only continued to laugh.

"I'll get you for that," he said, readying himself for the counterstrike.

"You forget, Ven: we're in my element here. You can't beat a water-master in her own niche."

Ven smirked back. "Oh yeah? Well, just wait until we start exploring clouds! You won't stand a chance against me then!"

Aqua placed her hands on her hips, an amused smile adorning her face. "There's water in clouds too, dingus."

Ven gagged, at a loss for words. "Well…uh…I'll just drink it all, then."

"You'll drink a cloud? Man, I gotta see that."

"Just try an' stop me! I'll drink all your clouds!"

Then they returned to their skirmish in the river, unaware of the savage eyes that watched them.

It was the first time Aqua and Ven had seen each other in their underwear or even undressed in near proximity. What they silently feared would be an awkward situation despite both wanting to swim was instantly defused when Aqua pushed Ven into the river when he wasn't looking. It had all been innocent fun after that.

Fatigue caught up with them a half-hour later, when strenuous water sport subsided to sitting side-by-side against the earthen wall of the riverbank as the gentle waters flowed against the pair. They panted heavily, Ven's head resting on Aqua's shoulder and her head atop his, until they caught their breath only to remain as they were, enjoying their rare adventure and taking in the beautiful scenery it yielded.

"We need to go exploring more often," Ven said with a content smile.

"Yeah," Aqua replied, equally enchanted. "This really has been great. And to think all this was here the whole time, waiting for us to find it."

"We need to bring Terra next time. He'd love this…" Ven's voice trailed off as he caught sight of a small yet brilliant glow emanating from the cave where the river ran. His youthful eyes were entranced at once and he leaned forward for a better view, the shift unintentionally stealing his friend's headrest. "Hey, Aqua," he started, his mind half-absent, "do you see that?"

She did. And she could hardly believe it.

_A will-o'-the-wisp?_

Ven was already standing up, walking forward with the river current for a better view of the luminescent phenomenon.

Aqua rose from her seat, concerned for her friend. "Ven, wait. We don't know what it is."

But the boy was already so near the cave and fixated on the gaseous sphere. And as he approached nearer, several more of the dancing marvel's kind appeared and Ven was purely enraptured. He reached out to touch one…

…before Aqua pulled him back and defensively placed herself between the boy and the lights.

"Ven, I agree they're beautiful, but until we know what they are, we really shouldn't take any chances."

Ven could only smile innocently, still fixated on the lights. "How can they be bad, Aqua? This is the Land of Departure. No Dark forces have ever been able to reach here."

"That may be," she replied, facing him with heavy maternal concern, "but this area is still uncharted. There are things in this world not even the Master fully understands, and until we know what we're dealing with, we should be more careful. We don't need Darkness to threaten us: only a predator or a lethal plant would be enough, and frankly, I don't think you'd survive against those things all on your own just yet. You're too inexperienced."

"But I'm _not_ on my own," he protested back. "I've got one of the greatest Keyblade wielders _ever_ with me."

The compliment surprised her, but even as her voice softened, she held firm in her convictions. "There's things even I'm scared of, Ven. I'd rather not take any chances if I don't have to, especially if that means putting you at risk."

Then the melody of a dulcimer caught her ear. She turned sharply to the cavern's mouth and stood astounded at the cave's unpredictable properties. But what struck her most was the _familiarity_ of the tune.

_I haven't heard this song since…_

She remembered days of infancy and looking out at the world from a cradle as she passed through a park, and there was the song. She remembered early steps through a grain field under golden sunsets, and there was the player: a man in a sun hat and country attire who always gave her the time of day. Yet for as nostalgic as the song and the sights were, she questioned if any of it really happened.

"Ven," she started in a low voice, worried for what she was about to say, "those lights we saw…have you ever seen them before?"

The boy didn't know what to say, but his eyes said it all.

"Something about them lured you in right away," she pressed, visibly worried, "and I don't think it's just because they looked pretty. Think back—back to whatever scraps of memory you have left before you came here—have you ever seen these lights before?"

"Aqua…" his eyes reflected the same worry Aqua felt, "…you're right. I do remember them. I—I don't know _how_, but I do! I remember being a little kid in a swamp or something, and there were these lights dancing around just like these. I followed them and…but it doesn't make sense! I shouldn't have _any_ memories before four years ago, and how can I even be sure that really happened?"

"Exactly," Aqua replied. "And that music we're hearing, that's familiar to _me_, but I don't think I've ever heard it before. It's like memories are being implanted in us."

"Or reminding us of things we forgot." Ven almost seemed desperate in his counter. "What if that's what it is and this can help me get my memories back?"

Aqua squeezed Ven's shoulders, still very much worried. "In any case, isn't it suspicious that we're being reminded of these things at the same time and they're actually manifesting at this cave?" Ven started to understand her angle. She continued, her voice softer, "Like I said, we should probably leave. We can come back with Terra and the Master for backup and investigate more then."

Ven nodded and turned back for the riverbank to re-dress. Aqua followed behind, always keeping an eye on the abysmal cave which since gave up in producing either apparition or melody and returned to eerie silence.

When Ven left the river and approached the broad tree where he left his clothes, he had to stop and consider whether to dress now or wait until he dried off some. But while he contemplated this, Aqua, still some yards behind in the river, caught a slight rustling in a branch's leaves overhead. She looked up at once and thought she saw an obscured form hiding in the late summer greenery. And the closer she observed, the more vivid appeared the sight of two hungry sallow eyes. She screamed, "Ven! Look out!"

The boy jolted at once at the call, and looking up, found a shrieking carnivorous form descending towards him from above, a jagged spear clutched in its hands and poised down for the kill. Aqua erected a magic barrier at once mere inches over Ven, dumbfounding the hunter as it was repelled on contact and landed some feet away. But it quickly returned to its feet, eyes alert and teeth bared as it found Aqua now standing between it and Ventus, the temporary magic barrier now dissipating. She held her Keyblade, Rainfell, in her grasp, daring her enemy to make the first move.

In the stare-down, she found the hunter wasn't quite the nonhuman monster it seemed in the initial attack, but was rather a startlingly humanoid form—sullied by extra layers of hair on his body, longer and sharper teeth, and other less formed or mildly warped features—covered in an almost permanent layer of dirt and wearing the heavy skin of a werepanther. He growled at them in animal tones, no doubt a scare tactic among his people, and appeared ready to attack again at any moment.

When he made a sudden step forward, Aqua poised the Keyblade forward and charged it with an overwhelming surge of lightning, never firing but instead leaving the volatile energy to violently crackle as a miniature storm under her control. The hunter in the werepanther skin backed down at once, intimidated by the display, and Aqua pondered what to do with him.

_He meant to kill Ven and no doubt would've done the same to me. I really don't want to just let him go. But he also seems powerless before me—wouldn't killing him now be murder? …Maybe, but if I let him go, he'll only return to his people, tell them about us, and then we'll have an entire hunting party after us for God-knows-how-long. And if they follow Ven and me back to the castle, we'd also put Terra and the Master in danger. Still, this is a first contact situation with a new species. We can't afford to end this violently…_

"Who are you?" she asked the hunter. "Why did you attack us?"

Wary though he was at the bottled lightning, the crouched hunter only continued his predatory sounds and motions, still intent on claiming this foreign prey. Aqua glowered at the silent spear-carrier who drifted to and fro under her watch, and everywhere he went, the Keyblade's aim always followed, earning spiteful snarls from him.

"Can you understand me?" she urged, but he only growled in response. She could only wonder what thoughts coursed through his mind, aside from bloodlust. Where did he come from? What were his people like? And how long had they been in the Land of Departure?

Their deadlock lasted for another few minutes, neither one making an advance. Then, Aqua let the surging energy fade away and lowered her weapon, surprising worried Ven, who remained behind her. "I'm going to take a chance with you," she said in a controlled, adamant tone. "My friend and I are leaving. We will never come to this place again. And in return, we trust you and those like you to not pursue us. Don't bother us and we won't bother you." She kept her eyes on the hunter. "Come on, Ven. Let's get out of here."

The boy nodded, still visibly anxious, and handed Aqua her clothes as they slowly backed away, the pair never taking their eyes off the hungry-eyed predator. Yet as they slowly retreated, the hunter advanced, either not heeding or not understanding the Keybearer's warning. Aqua recalled Rainfell and the hunter slowed, but didn't stop.

"Hey!" she called, "Didn't you understand me? We may not speak the same language, but my actions must've been clear. Back off before we both regret this!"

He stopped, but Aqua wasn't convinced it was for peaceful purposes.

With Aqua watching the front, Ven suddenly had the cautious mind to check the rest of their surroundings, and in his survey, he spied another of the hunter's kind—an archer: silver-haired, red-eyed, and tan-skinned—perched in a tree across the river with an arrow drawn on a bowstring bent for the kill.

"Aqua!" he cried moments before the arrow flew. She at once turned to his warning and used her power to raise a mass of water from the brook, catching the arrow and then freezing it in a wall of ice.

The first hunter jumped at the opportunity and Aqua was still exposed from the stealth attack. Ven swerved in front of her, calling Wayward Wind to his grasp, and discharged a bolt of fire and lightning at the hunter moments before he could drive his spear into either of them, blasting the man in the werepanther skin pointblank and incinerating much of his upper torso, killing him instantly.

When the charred remains of his body struck the ground, Aqua gaped in horror at her friend's actions. "Ven…what have you done?"

"What do you mean? I—I saved us, didn't I?" Ven was hardly defensive, but only frightened and confused under his friend's scrutiny.

There was no anger in her voice—only dread. "You could've cast 'Stop' on him, blown him away with a gust of wind, or _anything_ besides killing him!"

Ven jabbered back, "But—but you—!"

"I was only trying to scare him so he could tell his people to leave us alone, but now that we've killed one of them, we might've started a war!"

Ven wanted to argue back, say it was only self-defense, but that was beside the point. There was still a vengeful archer on the other side of the waterway who watched them kill his tribesman and the ice wall Aqua erected would only protect them until he circumnavigated it. And who could tell how many others there were in the area?

In the urgency of the moment, Aqua seized Ven's wrist and told him, "Never mind that now—run!" and they fled into the forest knowing it was only a matter of time before more pursued them.


	2. The Making of Nightmares

Chapter Two: The Making of Nightmares

"She's getting worse," Eraqus remarked, reading the report Aqua wrote of her visions.

"But she'll pull through," Terra replied, his voice somber as he placed the washcloth on Aqua's forehead. The young woman lay unconscious behind them in her bed, bandages and clothes changed after her friend and the Master found her bleeding on the verge of death at her desk. "She's—she's strong," Terra tried to reassure himself. "We won't lose her too."

The Master closed his eyes and hung his head, truly heartbroken at everything transpired. "We don't know that, Terra. These beings—the Wretwaré—they're unlike anything even my masters have seen. We know so little about them. Only legends obscured by time. Unless we discover what was in that poison—"

"We'll do it!" Terra shot back, his eyes reddened by tears. "I don't care what it takes. We will _not_ lose Aqua like we lost Ven!"

[Hours ago…]

They ran. Spears and arrows descended about them as a fell voice chanted evil curses through the air. With every step, Aqua and Ven—now fully clothed—felt their powers weakening so that every spell or swing of their weapons against the hordes of hunters pursuing them exerted far more of their energy than would normally have been spent. The Keybearers fought and retreated with every exhausted effort of desperation through dense woods, evading enemy strikes of all sorts—including the arrows of the archer they first saw from across the river, whose silver hair contrasted his kins' dark-brown and black—yet fatigue caught up with them when they reached a tall cliff-side where the river became a waterfall.

Ven stumbled from blocking a heavy sword strike. Aqua was at his side a moment later and blasted away the hunter who harmed her friend with a potent ice-blast and then quickly helped the boy back to his feet. More warriors came and surrounded them, armed with a vaster and more efficient array of weaponry, and the two Keybearers stood back-to-back, weapons raised and readying themselves for the coming onslaught.

The fell voice continued its incantations.

"How're you holding up?" Aqua asked, disheveled and breathing heavily.

Ven wasn't faring any better. "It's…it's like we're getting weaker! First our armor and gliders don't work and now my magic barely responds anymore!"

Aqua grunted. "Yeah. I'm feeling it too. That last spell I cast should've been much stronger…and it shouldn't have spent so much energy."

They turned their attention to a robed figure standing on a tall boulder, where the incantations that permeated the air came from. Dark clouds rumbled forward, blackening the sky at his command.

"I bet it's him," Aqua said. "He's probably a mage or a spiritual leader to these people. That spell he's casting…that's what's draining us. So, stay close to me," her voice wavered. "We'll need each other to get out of this."

Ven caught the worry evident in his friend's words, and for the first time since he met her, he finally understood that not even Aqua was without fear. The revelation soured a part of his childish innocence, but also spurred him to rise up—to be that perfect warrior he always believed his friends to be.

A warlord of the bloodthirsty horde roared a command over the mage's unbroken chants and multiple warriors of the zealous tribe garbed in leather armor and heavy animal skins rushed the two Keybearers at once. Then, back-to-back, Ven and Aqua swung their blades with what dwindling strength they had left against an overwhelming wave of crashing steel and gnashing teeth. So many times the warriors came close to skewering the pair at the center of the crowd, cleaving their heads apart, disemboweling them, or even trampling them under superior numbers, but they stayed alive. Ven and Aqua dodged every blow with dogged determination and struck down every foe that came near them. And through it all, the two friends never left each other's backs.

_We can do this!_ —Aqua encouraged herself while dodging and riposting against the thinning horde. _I can barely breathe, my muscles feel like they're about to explode, but Ven and I are holding them off! We can win!_

And with her back strategically facing his, she never saw the archer's arrow pierce Ven's clavicle just above his heart, but she felt his weight jolt against her from the force of the shot. The collision threw her balance off, but she already cleared enough of the warriors away to have room to recover, yet as she turned around mid-stumble, horror overwhelmed her when she saw Ven crumple to the ground, his consciousness fading every millisecond of the descent.

She screamed, "VEN!" and heartbreak became rage when her friend's broken form was enveloped by further tribal warriors rushing for her. Weakened though she was, she parried their strikes and returned some of her own as the fray led them into the river's edge, where the hunters' slain bodies were carried over the hundred-foot waterfall. Even in her weakness, Aqua's unfathomable sorrow and hatred briefly charged Rainfell with fire, slashing a warrior diagonally in half.

She shrieked vengeance at the fiends who killed her friend, and they finally showed signs of retreat, but only to clear room for their greatest warrior: a colossus barely resembling the species nearing seven feet in height, his skin grey as death and covered almost completely in blue tattoos signifying strength and victory in battle, his body completely hairless, eyes sallow and baleful, teeth unnaturally sharpened, ears almost bat-like and pointed, muscles rippling, and in his right hand was a steel-grey and azure weapon four-and-a-half feet in length that was eerily familiar to Aqua.

_Is that…a Keyblade?!_

The spiked blades at the end of the weapon were drenched heavily in a dark green, poisonous fluid and the chain at the base of the handle was long enough to be wrapped several times around the monstrous wielder's forearm so that he'd never be separated from it. Daunted though Aqua was, she never lost the maternal will to avenge the friend she lost to these monsters. She clutched Rainfell with the last of her unstable, violent vigor and flames enveloped it once again.

The mage's invocations continued under the dark sky.

"I'm going to kill you," she seethed in a hushed tone at the encroaching champion who had no right to wield a Keyblade. Hot tears fell down her cheeks "No…I'll _destroy_ you. For what you did to my friend—my _family_—I'll destroy you!"

The dark champion confronted her in the river, Aqua precious meters away from the edge and the hundred-foot drop beneath, and he incited her to make the first move. He saw her fatigue and desperation and knew this would only be worth something if he toyed with her first.

Aqua raised her Keyblade for the first strike…

…and changed direction, firing a sudden bolt of lightning at the distant mage atop the boulder, ending him in a small electrical explosion. His corpse flung back, headless, to the shock and horror of the tribal procession gathered there. Even the grey-skinned titan who faced the blue-haired Keybearer turned and beheld the spiritual leader's demise in overwhelming dread.

The wicked chant was gone, and with it, Aqua felt inklings of her strength gradually returning— _Just enough to—_

She activated her Keyblade armor, yet before it could completely envelop her, the savage wielder swung at her with all his hate-filled strength, and his poison-coated Keyblade shattered hers and demolished the armor covering her midsection. The force of his strike jolted her from the water and over the edge, where she plummeted the hundred feet and saw fractals of Rainfell and her armor, a nauseating amount of her own blood, and her tears for Ventus trail behind her.

Her helmet and the rest of her armor finished forming by the time she crashed into the waterfall's base, leaving only her deeply gashed midriff exposed. As Aqua sank the twelve feet to the base of the riverbed, surrounded on all sides by the sunken or still-sinking corpses of the warriors she slew at the river's precipice that were carried over the edge by the current, she found the oxygen filter in her helmet kept her alive just as it would in space. But where breathing was no longer a problem, her blood and the dark green poison pooled profusely from her fatal wound underwater, forming a red and green aquatic "cloud" above that joined with the blood of the slain warriors around her, the collective haze reddening the late afternoon sunlight. She would die underwater from blood loss so long as the laceration stayed open.

Aqua's consciousness was fading and her strength and magic were still too far spent, though it would have been worse if she hadn't eliminated the mage. But with what energy she had left, she dragged a weary hand over the deep cut, muttered "H—heal" with desperate gasps, and a brilliant emerald energy sealed the wound with a fragile layer of skin. No more of her blood pooled away from her body, but that also meant the rest of the poison was trapped in her as well. It wasn't as much as it could've been, but without knowing how much of the toxin was still in her and how deadly it was, Aqua feared she had only prolonged her death instead of preventing it.

Her eyes grew heavy, her energy was gone, and she finally gave into the shock, not knowing if she'd still be alive when she awoke. In the last seconds before sleep, all she saw was the scarlet cloud tinted green and the bodies of her lifeless enemies about her.

Her last conscious thoughts were of Ventus.

Then, the visions started…

[Meanwhile…]

At the precipice where the river roared over the edge of the waterfall, the grey-skinned giant of a Keybearer stood knee-high in the rushing waterway, looking down where Aqua had fallen and seeing only redness. His kin panicked behind him, going back and forth on how to handle the situation and where to go from here. A great blasphemy had been committed. Their mage—their revered spiritual leader—was dead and gone. Some odd dozen of their warriors were slain in the hunt. Their territory had been breached by intruders of a species unfamiliar to them and who knew how many others there were? How long before the rest of the human invasion they assumed Ven and Aqua were scouts for retaliated?

The champion, though stricken by their losses and the revenge soon to come, kept calm and considered every option with a clear mind. The dark clouds their mage summoned in the chase were receding, and with them, the sun's rays gradually returned, the smallest slivers falling on the champion's grey skin and burning on contact. It barely fazed him, but he knew to turn back anyways.

He made for Ven's paling body while sheathing his chained Keyblade over his back. The boy still convulsed from shock, though he wouldn't move for much longer. And while the rest of the company argued amongst themselves in their guttural tongue, the champion saw the silver-haired archer standing over Ventus, pure hatred in his eyes as he looked down on the Keybearer who obliterated his friend near the cave. The archer prepared to fire another arrow for the boy's skull, but the champion barked at him in a voice that resonated throughout the area, "Scylv!" and the archer froze under his superior's authority, turning to him in wide-eyed awe. The champion gave another command in their language and Scylv reluctantly retreated from Ven's side, his desire to execute the boy despite his superior's orders transparent.

The champion authoritatively strode to where Ventus lay and crouched beside him. Dying Ven looked up and the terror he suffered from his fatal wound somehow intensified at seeing the fiend who defeated Aqua and destroyed Rainfell. The boy hoped to die before this champion could do anything to him.

But still the monstrous champion drew a sharpened bone-dagger from the arsenal hanging from his belt and raised it overhead.

[Sunset…]

Terra's armored form streaked from the bloodied pool at the base of the waterfall, riding into the air on his Keyblade glider with Aqua in his arms. Hastily, he made for the green banks and leapt from his glider, retracting his helmet and removing his friend's as he shook her, his voice urgent and eyes pleading, "Aqua, wake up!"

She was unresponsive. He looked again at the thick, massive scar infected green by something beneath the skin on her stomach which he first saw underwater and could only dread at what inflicted it. Aqua was the only one in the pool; whoever else contributed to the massive blood cloud—if there ever was anyone else—was long gone. If all that blood truly belonged to Aqua, she wouldn't still be alive, yet she was still breathing. That's how he knew there were others in the water with her who somehow vanished, but they weren't his concern. One of his best friends might be dying and the other was nowhere to be seen.

He shook her again, "Aqua, I need you to wake up!"

She moaned softly in her sleep and stirred just slightly. Terra shook and called her a third time and her eyes weakly opened. Terra sighed in what relief he could afford, then questioned her, "Aqua, what hap—?"

She bolted upright, ignoring the shooting pain in her abdomen and her head just missing Terra's as she screamed in horror at the cliff, "VEN!"

Taken aback though Terra was, Aqua's outburst affirmed his fears of Ven's absence. He grabbed her shoulders, trying to stay calm, but the wrenching in his own heart was transparent. "Aqua, I need you to tell me what happened."

Tears fell from her eyes as she suppressed the urge to scream. She turned to face Terra and said to him in broken sobs, "Ven—he's dead. We were—attacked…don't who they were. I think they poisoned—me…"

Terra looked again at her exposed stomach to see the green-tinged scar and the nauseating tendrils just beneath the skin. Stifling his horror, he picked her up in his arms and returned to his glider.

"Come on," he said, his voice shaky but calm. "Let's see if we can fix you up."

They sped through the sunset sky, traversing miles in minutes to reach their castle on the other end of the horizon.

"Terra," Aqua choked, "one of them had a Keyblade…he—he broke Rainfell."

The sudden horror in Terra's eyes was unmistakable, but he kept on flying and held Aqua firm in his arms. After a dismal silence, he replied, "I had my fears about Rainfell. It's how the Master sensed you."

"What are we going to do?"

Terra couldn't face her. Crushed under the weight of losing Ventus and in light of everything else he learned, he couldn't endure seeing Aqua's spirits so completely broken. _She_ was supposed to be the strong one. _She_—the woman he secretly respected as his better from the day he met her—wasn't supposed to be the one broken and mourning.

He answered her, "We're going to cure you. And then we're going to avenge Ventus."

[The castle's library, a short time later…]

"Oh no…" Eraqus gawked down at the dusty, centuries-old book open on the table, praying his discovery pointed any other direction.

"What?!" Terra rushed to his side with teeming urgency from the disheveled mountain of books surrounding them—searches that led nowhere. "What did you find?!"

Eraqus turned to his student with visible dread on his face. "Terra, you're _sure_ this is what Aqua described to you?"

"Yes," Terra asserted urgently, "tanned skin, red eyes, predominantly dark hair, warped features, animal skins worn by the warriors, prone to violence, a mage enchanting the battle, and none of their dead were left behind. So tell me, _what did you find?_"

Eraqus heaved a heavy sigh and directed his pupil to the opened section of the ancient book. "These are them: the Wretwaré."

Terra gaped at the illustrations and felt a rising sickness in his stomach at the depictions of humanoid monsters gnarled by shadow and fire. An obvious romanticism from a simpler time to be sure, but even still, his heart shuddered at learning these enemies whose terror inspired the nightmares of long-dead artists and historians in such gruesome ways still walked the Land of Departure.

[Present time, in a conference room in the castle…]

Two pillars of light shone from a vast semicircle of small altars, displaying the likenesses of Masters Yen Sid and Xehanort as they communicated from worlds away. Theirs were but two of over a dozen pedestals reserved for the Keyblade elite who earned the rank of Master, but in time, their numbers which once ranged in the hundreds diminished to a handful, leaving Eraqus and his two elders as the last known Masters of a dying order. It was Eraqus' hope that Terra and Aqua would join them someday, but now that possibility became less certain by the minute.

"And what are the Wretwaré?" asked Xehanort's projection.

Eraqus replied, standing before his own magic projector, "From what Terra and I discovered, they are a race that have existed beneath the Land of Departure for as long as any history text can fathom. No one knows exactly what they are or where they came from, but they were thought to have gone extinct from battles millennia ago."

Yen Sid stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I remember my own Master spoke to me once of this species in my days as his apprentice. He said they were a savage people, not for their undeveloped technology or strange ways, but for the darkness that seemed to naturally consume their hearts, possessing them to wage war and shed blood wherever the opportunity presented itself: against rival kingdoms, against innocents…even against each other."

"You're telling me these creatures are beings of pure violence and hatred?" Eraqus asked, astonished at what he heard.

"Or so my Master told me," Yen Sid replied. "I questioned him over a great many things in his lifetime and have maintained this skepticism long after his passing, so I will not say with final judgment that these Wretwaré are as wholly evil as he and the historians before him claimed. However, if they have declared war on you seemingly without cause, felled two of your Keybearers, and continue to haunt your land as we speak, then I urge _every_ caution when dealing with them. They have made enemies of you, and if they are so much as a fraction as bloodthirsty as their reputation suggests, you and your students are in grave danger. I advise you relocate to my domain immediately so that we may all prepare a strategy and provide Aqua with better treatment."

"Just a moment, Master Yen Sid," Xehanort interjected. He turned to Eraqus, "You say Aqua's been poisoned and is now suffering from mad delusions and fits of passion?"

"Yes," Eraqus answered. "What are you getting at?"

Xehanort continued, "I fear she is too fragile to transport such a great distance in her condition. She is stabilized in your castle, and for now, alive. Were you and Terra to move her to Master Yen Sid's facilities to undergo superior treatment, she would die before she ever reached the world."

Yen Sid nodded in agreement and said to Eraqus, "Then your student's best chance of survival is if I and my servants make for your Land of Departure and bring what we can with us."

"I'll join you later," Xehanort said and all eyes were on him. "While Yen Sid devises a suitable treatment for Aqua, I can lend my services by conducting further research on these Wretwaré off-world."

"Xehanort," Eraqus replied, "the Wretwaré are native to the Land of Departure. Your best chance is researching them _here_, where all their known history is recorded."

"All their _known_ history," Xehanort retorted with a smile on his face. "I have resources that have served me well in learning of other worlds' cultures in the past, some subjects once considered too obscure for even native historians to understand, but I have always managed. I believe I will be of more use investigating them in my own way."

"I question the efficacy of your methods, Xehanort," Yen Sid commented, "but I will trust your judgment. This is a desperate time and we must make haste if we are to save Aqua's life."

"One other matter," Eraqus said and the others listened. "Aqua also tells me there was one among the Wretwaré that was unlike the rest: approximately seven feet in height, grey as death with blue markings covering his body, and appearing far more monstrous than the others in his company." Eraqus paused and repressed a shudder before he spoke again. "He had a Keyblade."

Xehanort and Yen Sid were visibly astonished, _horrified_ at the news, a look of terror unbecoming of the Masters overwhelming the distant pair.

"A…Keyblade…?" Yen Sid stuttered, hardly believing his ears.

"Did she tell you what the Keyblade looked like?" asked Xehanort, frantic from the news. "If we can identify the blade, we may also learn who the wielder is."

"Unfortunately, no," Eraqus said. "She passed out before she could offer such details, though we believe it was his weapon that poisoned her. But if there is anything you should know about his weapon, it's this: his Keyblade _destroyed_ Aqua's."

There was only dreaded silence between the aged Masters now, and that was far more unsettling to Eraqus than the act of delivering the news that triggered this petrification.

Yen Sid was the first to speak. "Not since the days of the days of the χ-blade has a weapon been capable of such destruction."

"Eraqus," Xehanort said, "You'll need far more than _research_ to stop this enemy. You'll need an army. I may be able to provide one."

Eraqus hadn't anticipated his friend's words and eyed him questioningly. "Where would _you_ muster up an army, Xehanort?"

The bald man made no expression, the air of solemnity still hanging about all of them. "Like I said, I have my resources. And you need them."

"I don't want to start a war, Xehanort." Eraqus asserted.

"They declared war on _you_, Eraqus," his friend replied. "They spilled first blood. And right now, they have a champion who wields a Keyblade more terrible than any we've seen in our lifetimes. If they are as monstrous as the legends say and have this Keybearer leading them into battle, you'll need to be prepared. I'll bring you an army or the next best thing."

Eraqus sighed, at a loss for counterargument. "Xehanort…"

"If you are worried about doing this for revenge, don't be; consider this a preventative measure to protect the students you have left."

"I must agree with Xehanort on this matter," said Yen Sid. "I'll order what forces I have to follow me to your world, but I shall depart immediately. We've no further time to waste."

Xehanort nodded in agreement.

"Thank you both for your support," Eraqus said.

Then the transmissions ended and Eraqus was alone again. He sighed in the room that now felt much emptier, yet that was only a symptom of a much larger ailment. He turned for the door to the hallway, suddenly conscious that he would never hear Ven running and laughing down it again, and if he and his fellow Masters failed, Aqua would be lost as well. The castle already seemed significantly emptier.


End file.
